The power structure of a society is reflected in its social organization and in its economy: capitalism is controlled by a minority who dominate the factors of production. In a centrally planned economy it is the state that dominates, and these have their own spatial expression; see Boudreau (2007) Env. & Plan. A 39, 11 on making new political spaces.
Geographies of power study the spatial distribution of power across a multiplicity of geographical scales, from the body to the globe. The mix of scales changes dynamically, as territories are continually subjected to resistance, contestation, renegotiation, deterritorialization, and reterritorialization; see, for example, Mawdsley (2007) Geog. Compass 1, 3 on China and Africa as emerging challenges to the geographies of power.
Themes include state formation, where power is transmitted through social channels to territorial ones; see, for example, Jessop (2007) Pol. Geog. 26, 1 and the relationship of minority cultures and empowerment, as in Mavroudi (2008) Pol. Geog. 27, 1, on Palestine. See Kobrin (2001) in A. Rugman and T. Brewer (2003).